mav1234

Insane, Smith Njuba with the huge reception... Just need a few more yards...

Crazy turn of events. Darnold will get a chance to avoid overtime...

Darnold may never be better than a mid tier starter, but man does that feel like a huge upgrade at times.

What a throw by Darnold, goddamn. 35 yards down field dropped right into his arms

Yeah, he's a head scratcher. He has a ton of talent he just forces too much.

Harrison seems to have lost some confidence. He still at least shows flashes, and he's been far more productive than XL. But maybe a bigger disappointment in some ways given people expected so much more from Harrison

That was a damn nice catch by Harrison

Their defense is decent. But I think they're getting gassed by a terrible offense. I'm enjoying seeing Darnold playing pretty well.

Awesome write ups, thanks! Excited to see the defense improving

If the rumors were true about him helping Bryce in the huddle, I wonder if that could be responsible in part for how the passing offense has looked at the start of the season.

Bryce has only thrown like 7 balls 20 yards or more and has 1 completion. This is out of 114 attempts He is among the lowest in the NFL in intended air yards per completion, almost 2 yards lower than last year. He has had 5 drops (2 to TMac, 1 to XL, 1 to Sanders, 1 to Chuba) , which puts him slightly above the league average by percent, but pretty close to it (4.5% vs 4.1% or so). He's also above the league average in "bad throws" (based on PFF). I'm not entirely sure how they're measuring EPA per pass attempt there but according to https://sumersports.com/teams/offensive/ we are 26th in EPA per pass play. Given all that, the idea that the problem is our young receivers not holding onto the ball feels a little incorrect, tho TMac needs to work on that (some of those aren't deep). Bryce has barely given them any opportunities deep.

I get the frustration with all the Bryce talk. After all, there's not much new to say about it. Know what else is frustrating? Watching a third year pro be seemingly unable to complete throws to anyone 15 yards from the like of scrimmage reliably.

The more Ransom the better.

The good news is the offense we have built would work well for any decent QB, imo. It isn't like we're going with some offense built exclusively for a screen game or something

Our secondary is coming together real well for sure. And Brown is great for sure. Hoping with more time our LBs develop a bit more. We have a lot of inexperience/youth on the D that could really pay off down the line

As usual for the last couple weeks I do care more about your thoughts from the all 22 on the defense. Seeing some of our younger guys making plays this week on D was great.

In what metric is the Panthers offense good? Honest question as I haven't looked at the stats relative to other teams this year.

I think they were in the top half or so of the year last year, but the point you are alluding to is pretty good - if you're good in short yardage these per play metrics have less importance

Check out their first half drives. Bijan rushed like 10 times and got half his yards for the half on two carries mid way thru the 2nd quarter. He had 2-3 yards on the vast majority of his rushes in the first half, so they were forced into third and long repeatedly.

Absolutely. I'm concerned by what I've seen this year because he looked much better at the end of last year, and I don't mean in terms of stats. He doesn't seem to be seeing the field as well, or maybe it's the turnover at WR, I don't know.

Allen isn't a problem for the Bills the way Bryce feels like he might be for us. There's nothing wrong with taking what the defense gives you but in that game alone Allen basically exceeded Bryce's completions over 10 yards all season.

This is definitely true. For that matter there were two games Bryce was a huge part of us fighting back and nearly winning last year even though we came up short. Those were as impressive as some of his game winning drives imo.

Felt like the best game from the defense in a long time, especially first half wise. Despite the muff the D didn't fold like they have after previous turnovers.

Ehh. Allen can and does go deep when he needs to. Bryce Young can't seem to regularly this year. I don't care about him throwing 40 yards like Allen can, I just want him to push the ball past the sticks more. I don't think deep bombs are all that necessary (nor do they predict success ultimately). Its also not one passing chart but 100 passes this year I go by, and his overall history as a passer. If you look at Allen's play through his career you don't wonder if he can threaten a defense at different levels.

All this rationalizing about this game doesn't change the fact Bryce had 3 completions in 70+ attempts at or beyond 15 yards coming into this game. Bryce hasn't threatened past the sticks consistently this season. It's quite different from his good games last year imo.